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Opposing Agendas in the Georgia Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives

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Opposing Agendas in the Georgia Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY SAN MARCOS THESIS SIGNATURE PAGE THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY THESIS TITLE: "Fightin' Long Alter I Is Gone": Opposing Agendas in the Georgia Federal Writers' Project Slave Narratives AUTHOR: Denise Kane DATE OF SUCCESSFUL DEFENSE: April 23,2014 THE THESIS HAS BEEN ACCEPTED BY THE THESIS COMMITTEE IN PARTIAL FULLFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN HISTORY. Dr. Jill Watts_ l<* THESIS COMMITTEE CHAIR SIGNATURE DAT Dr. Katherine Hijar _ THESIS COMMITTEE MEMBER SIGNATURE U DATE Dr. Catherine Cucinella ^-/—, THESIS COMMITTEE MEMBER SIGNATURE F/ATEf1 “Fightin’ Long Atter I Is Gone”: Opposing Agendas in the Georgia Federal Writers’ Project Slave Narratives Denise Kane California State University, San Marcos Department of History © 2014 Abstract From 1936 to 1938, the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) interviewed over two thousand former slaves about their experiences under slavery. Since the interviews took place during the Depression, the ex-slaves also shared details about the Depression in the interviews. The Georgia FWP narratives also reveal information about 1930s race relations. In the majority of the interviews, a white FWP interviewer conducted the interview with the ex-slave. To a great degree, white ideas about race in this period shaped the interview. In analyzing the FWP narratives of Georgia, it becomes evident that the conflicting agendas of the FWP interviewers and ex-slaves dominated the interviews. The white FWP interviewers strove to maintain the Jim Crow ideology and supposed racial superiority of whites by censoring criticisms expressed by the ex-slaves, and manipulating the content of the original interviews. In contrast, black interviewers sought to show the ex-slaves as equals, as intelligent, and as worthy of assistance during the Depression. Meanwhile, the ex-slaves had their own agendas. Elderly African Americans had been especially hard hit during the Depression. Elderly ex-slaves often sought to reveal the shortcomings of New Deal and relief programs in helping blacks. The elderly ex- slaves sought much needed information and food, and chose to barter for these items with the FWP interviewers in exchange for an interview. Even though previous scholars have almost exclusively used the FWP slave narratives to understand slavery, using the narratives to explore the Depression reveals the tense race relations of the 1930s dominated by Jim Crow, disenfranchisement, and inequality. Keywords: Federal Writers’ Project slave narratives, elderly African Americans, Great Depression, Race Relations, Georgia 2 Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………...4 Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...5 Chapter One…………………………………………………………………………….27 Chapter Two……………………………………………………………………………52 Chapter Three…………………………………………………………………………..84 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….112 Appendix A……………………………………………………………………………115 Appendix B……………………………………………………………………………118 Appendix C……………………………………………………………………………119 Notes on Sources………………………………………………………………………148 Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………...151 3 Acknowledgements The idea for this thesis began eight years ago when I was introduced to the Federal Writers’ Project Slave Narratives in a history of slavery course taught by Dr. Jill Watts. I had no idea that a small paper would kick off an eight year exploration of the narratives, which would culminate in my master’s thesis. A special thank you to everyone who made this thesis possible: Dr. Jill Watts – Thank you for introducing me to the FWP slave narratives. Your knowledge of the narratives enabled them to speak their truth to me during this project. I appreciated your support, encouragement, and expertise. Dr. Katherine Hijar and Dr. Catherine Cucinella – Thank you for your willingness to serve on my thesis committee. I greatly appreciated your enthusiasm, suggestions, and advice. Dr. Alyssa Sepinwall – Thank you for your continued motivation as I navigated my thesis. Your expertise on historiography and finding my “I say” greatly improved my thesis. Mom, Dad, and Dawn – I would not have completed this thesis without your love, support, and encouragement. Thank you for everything – and I do mean everything. Jason – Thank you for your patience and love. No more excuses to spend time together. To All of the Amazing Librarians – A special thank you to all of the librarians at NARA, Library of Congress, the various Georgia archives, the EOP, and CSUSM that helped me during the course of this project. I applaud your knowledge, eagerness to help, and happy demeanor. Friends – Thank you for your continued support, feedback, and informal counseling sessions. Malia and Ruby – Thank you for your kisses, smiles, and goofiness. I promise – more ball tossing, less computer time. Bailey, Sasha, Shaq –Thank you for your early support of the project, before age and illness called you away much too soon. 4 Introduction Ex-slave Anderson Furr was “reclining comfortably in a cane-backed chair, with his walking stick conveniently placed across his knees” when Federal Writers’ Project (FWP) interviewer Sadie B. Hornsby approached the “small frame house on the rear of the lot” between 1936 and 1937.1 Hornsby described Furr as wearing a “costume consist[ing] of a battered old black felt hat, a dingy white shirt, dark gray pants, and scuffed black shoes.”2 Hornsby’s goal was to get Furr to talk about his experiences in slavery. Her opening question did just that. She asked Furr “if he remembered the days when the North was fighting the South for his freedom.”3 Furr’s response encapsulates the struggles of elderly ex-slaves during the Depression. He stated: “’Member fightin’! Why, Lady! Dey ain’t never stopped fightin’ yit. Folks has been a-fightin’ ever since I come in dis world, and dey will be fightin’ long atter I is gone.”4 The Great Depression began in 1929 and lasted until 1942.5 African Americans were the worst hit by the Depression. In the first year after the Depression began, the unemployment rate for blacks was approximately thirty-eight percent.6 In the second year of the Depression, unemployment rates amongst black rose to approximately fifty to seventy-five percent.7 Not only did blacks lose jobs as a result of business failures, but they also lost jobs to whites. With wages now equal between blacks and whites, there was no reason to hire African Americans over whites.8 The situation would prove even more dire for elderly African Americans who were 1 George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, vol. 12 (Georgia), Part 1 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing Company, 1972), 345. 2 Rawick, The American Slave, vol. 12 (Georgia), Part 1, 345. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 Cheryl Lynn Greenberg, To Ask For An Equal Chance: African Americans in the Great Depression (New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2009), ix-xii. 6 Greenberg, To Ask For An Equal Chance, 21. 7 Ibid., 25. The unemployment rate in Atlanta in 1934 was estimated at seventy percent. 8 Ibid., 27-29. 5 either unable to work or were passed over for jobs as a result of their age. In most cases, the New Deal was not helpful to African Americans as a result of racial discrimination in the states where relief was disseminated.9 At the same time that blacks were suffering through the Depression, the Works Progress Administration (WPA) created the Federal Writers’ Project (FWP). One of the FWP projects was to interview ex-slaves. From 1936 to 1938, the FWP completed “interviews with more than 2,000 former slaves conducted in seventeen states,” including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.10 Of these, approximately 290 ex- slaves were interviewed as part of the Georgia FWP ex-slave narrative project.11 The primary goal of the narrative project was to gather information about the ex-slaves’ experiences in slavery. However, the interviews were completed during the Depression, and many details related to Depression-era conditions made their way into the narratives. This thesis will analyze the FWP Georgia slave narratives to ascertain the conditions of elderly African Americans from 1936-1938. Elderly African Americans were often the worst hit during the Depression as a result of discrimination from New Deal and relief programs. To date, conditions of elderly blacks during the Depression have not received much coverage by historians. While the ex-slave narratives have been primarily used to study slavery, they reveal much about the Depression. Studying the lives of elderly African Americans, as told through the slave narratives, allows for the exploration of the FWP’s operations, the agenda of the interviewers and ex-slaves, and the methodologies of quantitative and qualitative data analysis. 9 Ibid., 43. 10 George P. Rawick, ed., The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, Supplement, Series 1, vol. 3 (Georgia), Part 1 (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1977), ix. 11 Many of the ex-slave interviews included combined or family interviews. Thus, there were several people included in the interview and some may not have been ex-slaves. 6 New insights into the strengths and weaknesses of the slave narratives as a historical source are unearthed as a result of investigating the lives of elderly African Americans during the Depression. This thesis will argue that the FWP ex-slave narratives reveal much regarding race relations between blacks and whites in the 1930s. Both the ex-slaves and the FWP interviewers had conflicting agendas. The ex-slaves sought much needed assistance during the Depression. To that end, the ex-slaves used the FWP interviews as a medium through which to protest the shortcomings of the New Deal and demand relief. In doing so, the ex-slaves challenged the racial status quo even though they lived under a structure of paternalism held over from slavery. The white FWP interviewers attempted to thwart the ex-slaves’ agenda through censorship and manipulation of the content of the narratives in order to perpetuate white racial hierarchy and ideology.
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